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Posted by Romy the Cat on
12-26-2006
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The MET is launching a new initiative with movie theaters across the world. This season, six of the Met's live broadcasts will be aired via satellite in selected movie theaters. The first big screen broadcast will be this Saturday - an English version of abridged production of “The Magic Flute”.
http://www.huliq.com/2580/metropolitan-opera-live-in-hd-now-playing-at-a-theater
The initiative is not without controversy and I perfectly understand the supporters this idea and the people who are cautious about their expectations. Still, I feel that it is good to have this OPPORTUNITY and to see what will happen… I will not be going to the “The Magic Flute” of course but I would more then juts consider to visit a performance of two of those live video broadcast and to see the result. I hope with a couple of day the “The Magic Flute’s” broadcast will be available at YouTube and it will give some idea what MET will be doing….
http://www.metoperafamily.org/metopera/broadcast/hd_events.aspx
The caT
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Posted by Romy the Cat on
02-23-2008
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The worsening quietly of Metropolitan broadcasts is not a secret to anyone but did anyone notice that those hoodlums this session become even more obnoxious. Now the MET FM broadcasts are not live anymore but they are A/Ded, then come to some kind of digital buffer and then read from this buffer. Besides the obvious moronity to do it for FM analog broadcasts those idiots cannot implement the AD-buffering-DA read properly and the broadcasts actually has auditable micro-delay and micro -repeats right in the “live” feed. Disgusting!
Romy the Cat
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Posted by Romy the Cat on
11-01-2008
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fiogf49gjkf0d Well, the last season with grow of HD the quality of FM went very rapidly down. I wonder what change will be this year. Regardless the worsening quality of sound the program for 2008–09 season looks very exciting.
http://www.operainfo.org/?all=1
The broadcasts start in the end of the month, search for your local station that participate in the network.
The Cat
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Posted by jp on
03-28-2009
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fiogf49gjkf0d This was the first time I listened to a live radio broadcast and it was quite an experience! Today on WQXR, New York, Wagner's Das Rheingold was conducted by James Levine. Im officially hooked. Every Saturday at 1pm I will be glued to my seat. I dont know if it was the performance or the live quality of the feed. If only I had a DAW up and running...
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Posted by Romy the Cat on
03-29-2009
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fiogf49gjkf0d Well, I do not know how about NY, since it is local for you guys, the NY stations might care different source for their broadcasts, but it looks like we around the world are getting very poor quality of MET broadcasts. I do not know where even to start criticizing the MET sound. The biggest problem that they apparently transmit in FM somewhere and in HD, not to mention the video feed. According to the US FCC regulation the stations that broadcast in FM and HD much have analog and digital feeds synchronized (in case a receiver is losing HD reference). So, what those stations do is in real time move digital feed ahead or behind to keep it in synch with analog signal and presumably with video signal. The result is disaster. The sound is sliding right across the live sounds and it feels like you accidently sit naked on ice. It is belong horrible as some of the performances are truly good. I spoke with a number people who are listening MET around the world and they comment very positively about the quality of MET sound, but I feel that they just do not know what they are talking about.
The Cat
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Posted by jp on
03-29-2009
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fiogf49gjkf0d I guess you didnt have a chance to listen to the station broadcasting from the Met while in New York? Perhaps it is different. I get met broadcasts on satellite radio and the quality is horrendous but I guess thats a different story. Frankly, I might have just been blown away by the "live" FM transmission. But, I have alot of "live" cds and it doesnt sound anything like what I heard this afternoon. I have a couple of renditions of Das Rheingold, which I never bothered replaying that often but if I had today's recording I think I would listen to that one repeatedly. I mean I could go into details but Ill spare the superlatives. Even if what you say may be true, I find my FM broadcasts to be superior. Geez, what does that say about my digital rig...
Ive become obsessed now and I have enough motivation to pursue a DAW and buy a tower sized HD rack. I made a half-assed attempt before getting some things here and there. When I get it all together, perhaps in a month, Ill start posting up some samples and you can decide for yourself, assuming I figure out how to record the damn thing properly.
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Posted by Romy the Cat on
04-11-2009
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fiogf49gjkf0d Does anyone else have that sliding and helicopting sound on continuing notes during MET broadcasts? I do not think it is my local guys but I 6think it comes from MET. Is it just in Boston feed or anyone have it?
The Cat
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Posted by jp on
04-12-2009
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fiogf49gjkf0d I dont know what you mean by helicopting, but I detected problems with the transmissions in later acts as if whatever machine they were feeding the signal to had problems. At certain points it sounded like they were fast forwarding tape-perhaps thats what you mean by sliding. Really sloppy, almost amateurish. Perhaps they didnt set the buffer up high enough? Its somewhat similar to how my test recordings sounded like when I didnt raise the buffer level. I have it recorded and can try to upload if you wish to compare.
On another note I didnt detect this problem the week before...
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Posted by Romy the Cat on
04-12-2009
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fiogf49gjkf0d This problem exists for the last 2-3 years; you can hear it more with Wagner because his operas have more long continues notes. Call to MET, ask the broadcast division and complain.
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Posted by jp on
04-17-2009
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fiogf49gjkf0d
So, after the terrible FM transmission the week before, I sent them an email and received the following response:
"Thank you for contacting us.
We regret to hear that your enjoyment of our broadcast of
Die
Walküre
on April 11
th
was less than favorable
. Please know our Radio Broadcast Department monitors the WQXR signal and verified that they did not hear
the problems you described
; in addition, a vast majority of our listeners did not report any problems with the transmission.
I
f you were listening
to our broadcast
over the internet, there may have been some data interference, or possibly some local interferenc
e.
We hope
this information is helpful. Please contact us if you need further
assistance. Thank you for supporting the Metropolitan Opera.
Sincerely,
Judy M. Williams
Met Opera Customer Relations":
LOL, I cant believe this was their response. I would prefer they admit their problems and say they cant fix it than to dismiss it completely without acknowledging any problems. The vast majority? Come on now! Well at least they admit that there are actually people who complain about this, as if that was not enough... The bad part is, their engineeers are deaf and dumb. Do they realize what type of music they are transmitting and not some garage band level music? I guess Ill have to send them an email every week. It may take a few decades. Maybe I can get a petition going.
I listened to yesterdays live to tape recording of the NY Philharmonic and the first two segments were ok, but similar problems occured more or less. The last segment with Dutoit conducting Tchaikovsky was really terrible. It sounded like they were playing an MP3 file and then compressed even further with one of those free programs, if that is even possible.
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Posted by Romy the Cat on
04-17-2009
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fiogf49gjkf0d There is nothing to be stunned. This is norms. You spoke with Customer Relations people. They are semi paralegal BS artist or the glorified secretaries who are clueless and not very effective. You need to talk with somebody who do actions and who is responsible for sound. MET has a Broadcast Division and you need to talk to those people. The person who administers Broadcast Division for Radio Network is Ellen Godfrey. She is very much not BS type of person and quality of MET sound is her direct responsibility. She was instrumental to force my local WHRB to replace the faulty device in WHRB studio allowing to retransmit MET more or less even-balanced. Do not be overly optimistic there as it is much deep-seated problem than you think. They synchronize the HD (or video) and FM feed in real time and I think that is the source of FM time fluctuation. What the need to do is to adjust not the feed that drives FM but the HD feed. The idiots who listen HD Radio are deaf anyhow and the sliding tone during the HD transition will not impact those people too much. The key is not to be silent about the problem and raise you voice.
The Cat
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Posted by Romy the Cat on
04-17-2009
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fiogf49gjkf0d
Actually, I just had a conversation with John Creswell who is technical person at MET broadcast division. There was no even a sign of ignorance or a desire to brash me off. Quite in contrary- he was very attentive, curios about the problem and to the the framework the problem took place. I will send him tonight the fragments of recordings with the well-highlighted problems and I think it might be the way to have the problem addressed.
Very good! I am a putz that I did not do it 2 years back!
The Cat
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Posted by jp on
04-17-2009
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fiogf49gjkf0d Im very glad to hear that. I intend to follow up on this situation as well so they know that more people are interested in getting this situation under control.
Also, Im not sure if its my non-modified tuner or not but on some of their "live to tape/live" broadcasts I get significantly more hiss/background noise- like yesterday's Tchaikovsky 5 with Dutoit. I didnt get much from the Saturday broadcasts.
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Posted by Romy the Cat on
04-25-2009
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fiogf49gjkf0d It is the last Saturday of the MET season and Levine ending it with last Ring opera – the Götterdämmerung. I am in my pastel mode, slowly soldering the DH Milq’ MF and listening the live MET broadcast. I have to tell you that today is unspeakable treat. The singers are here and there, generally good and very willing, if you know what I mean, but the way the MET orchestra plays today is just stunning. In fact I never had so much pleasure from Götterdämmerung. Bravo, James Levine!!!
The Cat
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Posted by mats on
04-25-2009
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fiogf49gjkf0d
At least here in Chicago the sound is really good too.
I thought it started last week, and today we have a rich, spacious stage,
growling bass, haunting horns and strings, and sometimes the singers hit a zone
where their presence is startling. Did they change something in NY I wonder?
Wonderful it is.
Mats
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Posted by Romy the Cat on
04-25-2009
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fiogf49gjkf0d Wow, what a concert! Incontestably the very best live broadcast in 2008-09 seasons and the most impressive Götterdämmerung I heard, at least orchestral play. Did you pay attention how Levine cooked up the pressure and how smart he built up drama? So, good! I did not believe it last 6 hours! I have tickets for Natalia Gutman and Boston Philiharmonic Orchestra in one hour to play in Jordan Hall. If I knew that we have such a great end of the Ring from MET today I would not probably go for Prokofiev’s Cello Concerto right after THIS Wagner…
The Cat
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Posted by Romy the Cat on
12-26-2009
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fiogf49gjkf0d Fabio Luisi just conducted MET with Strauss’s Elektra with Susan Bullock, Deborah Voigt, Felicity Palmer, Wolfgang Schmidt, Evgeny Nikitin. It was insultingly wonderful, the singers the orchestra – everything, even the WHRB’s sound that they fixed two week back was spectacular. What a treat! It is shame that I recorded it at 44K not at 88K, and it is shame that I do not speak German!
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